Programming

Reports out of a Google developer conference in India indicated that Google was primed to add support for Java programs running on its presently Python-only Google App Engine. Java support is a top request for the Web application hosting site, but fans would be better off holding their horses for now.

The reports based the Java-on-GAE conclusion on remarks from a speech by Prasad Ram, director of Google research and development in Bangalore. Google, though, said nothing is happening soon.

"While we don't have any immediate plans or announcements, we are working on other languages for App Engine. … Read more

Greasemonkey, a Firefox customization tool popular among high-powered Web surfers, is coming to Google Chrome browser.

Aaron Boodman, a Greasemonkey author and a Google programmer who's active in the Gears project, contributed Greasemonkey support to Chrome, and the Google Operating System blog picked up on the change.

At this stage, enabling Greasemonkey requires people to use a cutting-edge developer version of the open-source browser and to launch it with a "--enable-greasemonkey" option set.

Greasemonkey lets people run scripts that modify Web page appearance. For example, back when Google's Gmail service lacked a "delete" button, … Read more

Astro is launched.

On Wednesday, Adobe Systems announced the release of a major update to its Flash technology to endow Web sites with better video, audio, and graphics. The new version 10 was code-named Astro, and it arrived just days after Microsoft released version 2.0 of its rival Silverlight software.

Flash Player 10, a free download also available for Windows and Mac users from Download.com, includes a number of new features:

• Easier-to-use 3D graphics effects.

• Better text handling for more sophisticated layouts combining words and graphics, more refined typography, and better multilingual applications.

• Better sound … Read more

Microsoft said Sunday that it plans to ship the JQuery JavaScript library with its Visual Studio developer tool suite.

The software powerhouse said that jQuery would be one of the libraries used to implement higher-level controls in the ASP.net Ajax Control Toolkit, and would also have a role in new Ajax server-side helper methods. The 15KB JQuery JavaScript library will be distributed as is, with no forking, and files will continue to adhere to the JQuery MIT license.

In addition, Microsoft said that it would contribute tests, bug fixes, and patches to the JQuery open-source project and that later … Read more

There's no shortage of people talking about cloud computing these days. But are they all talking about the same thing?

Speaking with venture capitalist Ann Winblad at the Churchill Club onThursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addressed those differences of opinion:

"I would have thought I knew what the word 'cloud computing' meant," he said, "until I sat with Anne and a bunch of venture capitalists this morning who used the word completely differently than I would have used it."

Ballmer declined to get into the specifics of Microsoft's vision, or to offer any details … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Like others in the industry, Craig Mundie sees computing moving increasingly to the cloud. The big question is: what will be the "killer" applications driving demand?

Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, offered up the company's vision for the next phase of computing at the EmTech conference here on Thursday. That vision includes an increasing reliance on cloud-based computing, robotics, and far-flung sensors. And, Mundie says, client-based operating systems.

"Whether it's Windows or something else, something has to make all of this iron work. People say OS is irrelevant, (but) … Read more

Attention coders: Google has released version 1.0 of the Android software developer kit.

The kit lets programmers create applications that will run on Android phones, even before T-Mobile starts selling the first Android-powered G1 on October 22. The biggest difference from the previous Android SDK 0.9: software built with version 1.0 will actually, not just probably, work on those real-world phones, according to the SDK release notes.

Google hopes its Android operating system project will help spur the mobile phone industry into a more enthusiastic embrace of Internet technology. Google of course profits from ads next to … Read more

Marguerite Reardon co-wrote this article.

There will be plenty of hullabaloo on Tuesday when T-Mobile unveils the first phone powered by Google's Android operating system. But the event is only the beginning of a long effort to rewrite the rules of the mobile communications industry.

The phone, a somewhat chunky model called Dream built by HTC, is expected to cost about $200 from T-Mobile and go on sale in October. Until other partners in the Google-spawned, 34-member Open Handset Alliance bring their Android products to market, this small piece of electronics will shoulder a lot of ambitions.

For T-Mobile, … Read more

The source code underlying Google's Chrome Web browser suggests that Google used a reverse-engineering technique called disassembly to figure out how to employ a useful Windows Vista security feature, but the company said it didn't, in fact, do so.

The Chrome source code said a particular security feature available on Vista, Data Execution Prevention, can be used on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1, though it's not documented for the older operating systems. The source code also said the feature can be understood with a disassembler, a method of reverse-engineering that deconstructs a binary file--such … Read more